Editor’s note: Mark Bradford is contributing occasional posts from his diary on traveling the country with his wife Wendy while they rent out their Mishawaka home for six months.
Day 26 of our 190-day sojourn
July 21 — Chetikamp, Canada
Another adventure day.
We decided to use a ferry to get us off Prince Edward Island. It cost us $91, which wasn much different to driving off the island since it cost $50 for the 4-mile bridge to the mainland) and you figure in $6.70 per gallon of gasoline. But we fell victim to eating breakfast on the ferry ($27.00) and that was that.
Once we got off the ferry, we had a 3-hour drive up the northeast coast of Nova Scotia to the little fishing town of Chetikamp, located just outside of yet another national park where we could take a 5-mile walk to what is supposed to be one of the best views in Canada.
The hotel we are staying in is an old home that they have redone and now they have six rooms for rent. This is the first time we have spent the night in the equivalent of a B&B. ($219/night, ouch)
As we continue along this path, Wendy and I are becoming much more open with each other. As it turns out, she likes alcohol more than I do, which is a surprise. Not that she drinks a lot (one a day at most), but now, rather than our money-saving “We will have water” reply to the waitress, now Wendy is ordering a beer or something else nearly every time we eat. We are trying to adhere to eating out once a day and suddenly Wendy is ordering alcohol.
I am guessing I am making her crazy and alcohol helps her escape. (ha?) She would say that she just wants to try new things.
In return, I am telling her that I should have some say in what we do each day. Prince Edward Island was a prime example, I had no idea who Anne of Green Gables is, but all of the sudden I was thrust into Green Gable-ville with both feet. Three days straight of nothing but Green Gables. Wendy was suddenly totally fascinated with the whole Anne-thing. She read lots of those things they stick on the walls in museums. I sat on a bench.
But my issue is I really don’t want to do much of anything, so my guess is that if she did not intervene, we would end up sitting on a bench all day.
That is what happened this evening. We had three hours to kill and neither of us wanted to sit in a 12×12 bedroom, so we found a place where they were playing music. Wendy decided to let me do what I wanted to do (after she had ordered a beer and onion rings) and so we sat there by ourselves.
After she could handle it no more, she said, “Let’s play pool,” and after a minute or so, there we were, playing pool and drinking beer in a Canadian town we had never heard of.
So, it seems the trip is changing us. Because we have no other friends to run to, we are learning to be a real couple. She still annoys the hell out of me with her smattering approach to everything and I still annoy her by never wanting to do anything and that is the basic conflict in our relationship. She wants to do everything all the time, while I don’t want to do anything, ever.
Tomorrow, we explore the Cabot Trail on the north edge of Nova Scotia. Look it up. We are way the hell out there.